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Did N e 1 buy the Saving Private Ryan Memorial Day special DVD?

I was wondering if anyone bought the Saving Private Ryan Memorial Day special DVD?

I bought it for $25 Canadian with the special features. Yes I know that movie is sad at some points, but I'm so intrigued by the 1930's & 40's. Especially WW1 & WW2. Private Ryan was one of my favorite movies.

The way it was done was amazing. They showed that in the special features disc. Personally I think it was one of the best WW2 movies in a long time.

I thought it was a great one, as far as ww2 movies, I always liked the dirty dozen, and I also liked the one about Vassili Zaitsev the Russian sniper, I think it was Enemy at the Gates, of course I'm a sucker for the sniper movies, I read both books about Carlos Hathcock and saw The Sniper plenty of times. So obviously Private Jackson was my favorite character in Saving Private Ryan.But other than that I'd throw Kelly's heroes in that group, The Longest Day as well. Yeah I liked all the stories about WW2 The most inspiring story to me personally was the battle of Iwo Jima, where John Basilone won the purple heart and the Navy Cross, making him the only man to recieve the Medal of Honor and the other two medals together, then you had guys like Col Chesty Puller who was awarded the medal of honor 5 times. There's a million great stories that came out of that war, everybody that was in it has a great story. I give those old vets alot of respect, they went through hell and came out victorious, God bless them.

I thought it was a great one, as far as ww2 movies, I always liked the dirty dozen, and I also liked the one about Vassili Zaitsev the Russian sniper, I think it was Enemy at the Gates, of course I'm a sucker for the sniper movies, I read both books about Carlos Hathcock and saw The Sniper plenty of times.

Yes Saving Private Ryan was a great especially the new one with all the new features & bonus material. Why they waited 10yrs to put the bonus material disc in I don't know. As for the Dirty Dozen, I always meant to watch the whole thing as I saw part of it on TV but had to go out. Enemy at The Gates was good. That's the one with Bruce Willis? One I didn't like was A Thin Red Line with Woody Harelson. He was good, but the overall movie wasn't that great.

So obviously Private Jackson was my favorite character in Saving Private Ryan.But other than that I'd throw Kelly's heroes in that group, The Longest Day as well. Yeah I liked all the stories about WW2 The most inspiring story to me personally was the battle of Iwo Jima, where John Basilone won the purple heart and the Navy Cross, making him the only man to recieve the Medal of Honor and the other two medals together, then you had guys like Col Chesty Puller who was awarded the medal of honor 5 times.

Private Jackson was cool, as you know he was played by Barry Pepper who was also in We Were Soldiers about Vietnam with Mel Gibson & Sam Elliot. That was good to, done in the similar fashion as Private Ryan with the camera guy right there in on the action but it was just as graphic. I never heard of The Battle of Iwo Jima about John Basilone. He was awarded a lot of medals. It's not a movie about a true story is it? I've seen that name Col. Chesty Puller before when doing some research. I also liked Private Carponza in Private Ryan played by Vin Diesel (Mark Vincent is his real name).

Did you know they had to go through a drilling 10 boot camp experience lead by a retired highly ranked officer? This guy really was in WW2, Asia, & Afghanistan.

The Omaha Beach sequence was shot in Ireland instead of the actual Omaha beach as there were certain restrictions on what could be filmed & a power plant along with a couple of buildings were there now so it interfeared with the natural surroundings they wanted.

There's a million great stories that came out of that war, everybody that was in it has a great story. I give those old vets alot of respect, they went through hell and came out victorious, God bless them.

I completely agree with you. I'd like to hear some of their stories. I live in Montreal & I have a buddy who's Dad made it out alive from WW2. We were just hanging out with a couple of other guys when he told us that. His Dad told him a lot of stories & we asked him if he'd share with us but he didn't want to. He said some of the stories were about his friends getting killed right next to him.

I guess you're a fan of the Medal Of Honor series for the Playstation 1 & 2? I loved Frontline especially at the beginning with Omaha Beach. It was pretty realistic for a game.

I wonder if any new movies about WW1 or WW2 will be released any time soon? I always love them b/c it teaches you about history.

BOTH books? I've only heard of one, what are the titles? His story is absolutely amazing, especially that sequence about sniping the N.V.A. General after slow crawling through a couple miles of grass field....................then having to go BACK while being hunted. The man must have had balls the size of grapefruit.

[QUOTE=ALBOB]BOTH books? I've only heard of one, what are the titles? QUOTE]
The first one I read was Carlos Hathcock in His Own Words, which was the second book, so then of course I read Marine Sniper which was the first one. Carlos Hathcock in His Own Words was a little out there, it was coming from the perspective that he was laying in his hospital bed basically in a coma, and he was recalling events in his life, and from the war. it was interesting and nothing like the first book at all. I liked both books, and if you read the first one you might as well read the other.

I'll tell ya one WW2 movie I absolutely hated was the one with Nicolas cage, Windtalkers, that movie was not worth any of my time. I thought the Thin Red Line was good though, Guadacanal has it's share of interesting stories, Iknow some of the stuff from a marine perspective, I know that's where John Basilone grabbed a machine gun and held off an entire wave of japanese soldiers by himself, he was awarded the medal of honor for this battle.

The title of the second book was Silent Warrior not Carlos Hathcock in His Own Words, I just looked it up. I read both in Mos school, they were my rackmates books, but the one's that I read were Marine Sniper and Silent Warrior, he had one called Carlos Hathcock in His Own Word but I didn't read that one the two I read were by the same author. Here's a website you might check out http://www.marinescoutsniper.com/ .

I'll tell ya one WW2 movie I absolutely hated was the one with Nicolas cage, Windtalkers, that movie was not worth any of my time. I thought the Thin Red Line was good though, Guadacanal has it's share of interesting stories, Iknow some of the stuff from a marine perspective, I know that's where John Basilone grabbed a machine gun and held off an entire wave of japanese soldiers by himself, he was awarded the medal of honor for this battle.

WindTalkers was okay, but just okay nothing special. No offense to anyone who likes Thin Red Line, but I just didn't like it very much. It was really boring compared to Saving Private Ryan or the Vietnam Movie We We're Soldiers with Sam Elliot, Mel Gibson & Barry Pepper.

What are some other classic WW1 or WW2 movies say from the 1970's or 80's? I know about Platoon but that was Vietnam.

most of the war movies I know of from the seventies and 80's were about Vietnam, The Boys from Company C was great, Apocalypse Now is one of my favorie movies all time, Platoon was awesome, The Deer Hunter was pretty good too, Hamburger Hill was great, Full Metal Jacket was classic, my Senior Drill Instructor let us watch that one on the last day of boot camp, Casualties of War with Michael J Fox and Sean Penn was good. I like the movies about the recent wars in Somalia and such as well, I thought Black Hawk Down was awesome, I liked Tears of the Sun with Bruce Willis as well, oh and Navy Seals, and the Rambo movies, GI Jane, and M*A*S*H. Glory was an awesome civil war movie, Gods and Generals was a long civil war movie, really wanna see Cold MountainI'm a big war movie buff,I haven't seen any really good ones recently outside of Enemy at the Gates though, I thought We were Soldiers was allright, just didn't effect me in the way some of the other movies did, didn't make me care about the guys the way i did in Platoon, or Saving private Ryan. Of course my favorite war movies were about the middle ages or even the time of the Roman Empire, anything with sword fighting, I am absolutely intrigued by sword fighting and knights and chivalry, Braveheart is one of my favorites, but there's a hundred i love. Anyways sorry to get side tracked, but i honestly don't know of any WW2 movies from that time era, Most of the WW2 movies either star John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, or the man Auddie Murphy, if that tells you anything.

Most Vietnam movies have been made by ex-Vietanm war protesters,while in the positions of movie production, and have a slewed view of the war. As slewed as a bunch of ex-Hippie,flagburning,dopesmoking,bombmakeing,commies , can make a war film, about a war they always personaly wished to degrade. Apocolypse Now was a fascinating bit of filmaking but historically it was about as accurate as horseshit. As in its portrayal of Vietnam. Kinda like John Kerry, his under 4 mo. combat experience, his 3 purple hearts for scratches ,"one of which he rode back to the world". At which time he called all his ex-comrades in arms "Apocolypse Now" soldiers,"tho he never saw such atrocities". I guess he saw them in movies.

I dont doubt there were atrocities, I dont doubt there was drug use. If I was trapped in such a world of shit I might have smoked it too. War its ownself is an atrocity. I remember a line from "Thin Red Line". "War doesnt en-noble men" ; "It turns them into dogs". That particular movie struck me as fairly honest, tho its depiction of troops in the field was "Hollywood". At least it didnt glorify anything. Im reminded what these young troops in Iraq are going thru now. Will we ever know? Will they ever make a "realistic movie" about it?

It doesnt matter if they do! We will never know. Ive never been in a war. But ive been in a few scrapes in my day and its taught me to at least admit I dont know what such "war" is like. Days and weeks and months of living second to second, seeing your buddies get blown to bits,atrocities both given and taken, friendly fire incidents....ect, the whole house of horrors.

So while I like war movies like the rest of you. I never lose sight they are nothing but Hollywood creations who's intent is to make money, and to further the personal views of those in charge of their production. I dont want to hear these hypoctites say "we made this to honor those that fell in battle". I think they made it to make money!! If they want to "honor" those troops then "give the money you make to the familys of those that fell". Or even better, march into battle yourselves you bunch of pussy's.

Sorry to sound so ornery. I like war movies too. But Hollywood is full of shit! They arent "honoring" or "accurately re-enacting" anything. And someone had to say it......................take care................Rich

Hey Rich I agree with ya on the accuracy of these movies and the fact that they are scewed to the left, but, I honestly would just rather be entertained by the movie than sit there and say oh that's bullshit, nobody would ever do it like that, that's not correct, I'd rather just watch the movie and take it for face value, I hate overanylsing stuff that I enjoy, it makes it less enjoyable, I like to put the old noggin on cruise control and sit back and watch the damn movie. But I still agree with ya on that. But even out of the inaccuracies, i can still find scenes that I guess you could say are nastalgiac to me, not that I fought in vietnam or WW2 or was even born 10 years within each war, but as a marine I can find scenes that do remind me of me and my buddies working, and how things go in combat. Like in Saving Private Ryan where everyone is relaxing and Pvt Ryan is talking to the Captain(Tom Hanks) Everyones just talking and completely relaxed, and then somebody here's a tank and one guy picks up his rifle and everyone goes back to work like fast. That kind of stuff reminds me of situations in my platoon, where we were just telling our stories and laughing it up and then one of our corporals will get up and pick up his rifle, and next thing you know we're gearing up and packed and jumping to another COC site. Some of what I see I know is historical and ethical junk, but I still find it enertaining, and I'd rather be easily entertained, than bored and annoyed of every damn thing i see on the TV, I'm too damn young to be that cynical ya know what I mean.